Most successful session ever, Dewhurst says

The recently concluded 170-day legislative session was “the most conservative successful session in Texas history,” the state’s lieutenant governor and now U.S. Senate candidate told a luncheon gathering of the Greater Houston Partnership today.

Billed as a report on the session, David Dewhurst’s rambling, half-hour remarks at the Houstonian morphed toward the end into a campaign screed against all things Washington, the place he hopes to be in a matter of months.

Legislative accomplishments, in Dewhurst’s view, included Medicaid funding, voter ID, eminent domain and funding “that met all our obligations to people in our society that are struggling.”

He also highlighted Senate Bill 7, designed to achieve health-care savings; tort reform; TWIA restructuring; the sonogram bill; doubling state funding for border security, appropriating a record amount for TxDOt and completing legislative and congressional redistricting. (“We drew them fairly to represent the will of the people of Texas. After all, the majority of Texans are Republican.”)

“Yes, we cut $15.2 billion out of the budget,” Dewhurst said, “and I have only said this 31 times to our press. Every day after session, I held a press conference — I’d say 31, 32 times — and I’ve never seen it once printed in the Houston Chronicle. Surprise. And that is, this year we appropriated more money for education than we’ve ever appropriated in the history of the state of Texas. . . . Yeah, we tightened the belt on administration. We reduced some of the spending for the Texas Education Agency, but we put more money in the classroom, because we know good teachers are the key.”

“I happen to think Texas out-worked, out-cut and out-performed all the other 49 states this year,” Dewhurst said, to applause from his GHP audience.

“We all know that our country is at a crossroads,” Dewhurst said, “and that’s the destination of my next journey. Working with Gov. Perry, I know that conservative principles and ideals work, and that’s why this Tuesday afternoon I filed papers to become a candidate for the U.S. Senate.”

Dewhurst told his Houston audience that he was the only person in the race who was a successful, conservative businessman and a proven fiscal conservative. “I just can’t sit on the sidelines and watch our country melt down,” he said.

“I thought he gave a good speech, you know lots of red meat, all those hot buttons for the base of the Republican Party,” said state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, who was in the audience. “I think those of us who are not focusing on the campaign trail look at where Texas ranks according to most of the numbers. It’s certainly accurate that we put more money in education, and we were about 47th in how we ranked before the session started, and I suspect we’ll still be about 47 compared to other states. We have challenges — the youngest population in the country, the fastest-growing state in the country. It’s the first time, at least since the Great Depression, that we did not fund enrollment growth in our public schools. That has an impact. . . .”

Dewhurst said he was still in the process of putting together his campaign apparatus and won’t start campaigning all out for some time to come.